Star Wars: Zero Company Review - You Can Fit So Many Glups In This Bad Boy

Star Wars: Zero Company feels like a game that's drawn from the galaxy far, far away in more ways than one. By that, I mean Bit Reactor - a studio comprised most notably of former Firaxis developers, who made the tactics genre their bread and butter with the XCOM series - has developed something that feels of a piece with a bygone era of George Lucas' franchise. That's not to downplay Zero Company's many, many innovations - the strides it takes with the tactics genre and the rewards yielded from blending it with the rich history of Star Wars - but rather to emphasise its uniqueness in the modern gaming landscape.

For over a decade now, AAA Star Wars games have been squarely pegged into two genres: the multiplayer shooter with DICE's Battlefront reboot, and action-adventure, with Respawn's Star Wars: Jedi series and Ubisoft's less-successful Star Wars: Outlaws the big hitters. There's nothing inherently wrong with either approach - Star Wars: Battlefront II overcame a rocky launch to become a beloved entry in the franchise, and Jedi: Survivor remains one of the greatest Star Wars games ever made - but it does speak to an overall shrinking of scope when it comes to how the Star Wars license has been deployed in recent years.

2026 is changing that in a big way, first with Zero Company - which releases August 27 - and then with the still-to-come Star Wars: Galactic Racer. Together, they're resurrecting the memory of what I think is fair to call peak Star Wars gaming - that early 2000s period where the franchise inspired a broad range of titles from RPGs to RTSs, arcade racers to single-player shooters, and so on. In Zero Company's case, it's also hitting that vibe not just in scope and premise, but also by being a damn good Star Wars game all around.

Like Jedi: Survivor before it, Zero Company should be another landmark moment for Star Wars gaming - a title that combines the friction of the tactics genre with the toybox qualities of the Star Wars mythos, and ends up delivering one of the most complete adaptations of the franchise we've ever gotten. In other words, it's a galactic dream come true.

Set during the twilight of the Clone Wars, Zero Company follows a band of mercenary misfits led by former Republic military officer Tesh Hawks as they're tasked with taking down the Separatist-aligned cult, the Infinite Coil. Hawks, who was forced to leave the Grand Army of the Republic following a disastrous mission on Umbara, is joined by a colourful supporting cast that represents the broad spectrum of the Star Wars galaxy. There's Trick, a clone trooper who served under Hawx and who works for Zero Company after being medically discharged; Runa Blask, a spiky Togruta loaded on caf with Separatist sympathies; and Kabbney "Kab" Uppercut, an opera-loving word-poet whose namesake comes in especially handy on the battlefield, and whose species is an original creation of Bit Reactor's.

Further allies show up as you progress through Zero Company's story, with highlights including AWOL Jedi Padawan Tel-Rea and legendary Mandalorian bounty hunter Cly Kullervo, but as with the best RPGs (and make no mistake, Zero Company is a dab hand at that too), it's the emergent narratives that come from creating your own characters that yield the biggest highs.

In addition to the game's authored cast, Hawks can also recruit from a pool of operators that you can create yourself or select from a regularly rotating roster. The latter will work just fine for those players not too fussed on customisation, but for those Star Wars fans who've spent years obsessing over clone trooper armours, astromech builds or just fashioning their own OCs, Zero Company's character customiser is going to be very dangerous in the absolute best way possible.

The Character Databank (where you'll be doing all your customising) is available right from the off, and comes equipped with a selection of various Star Wars species to build your characters around. Want to rectify the historic injustice that is Captain Fordo's erasure in the current canon? Well, you can do that. Want to resurrect a childhood drawing and see how they'd fare mixing it with the smugglers and scoundrels? You can do that too, with a ton of face, clothing, personality, class and weapon customisation to bring them to life.

It's a feature that's basically a Pandora's toybox - a customisation smorgasbord that feels like The Sims got fed through a Trash Compactor and came out the other end fully Glupp Shittified (again, in the best way possible). There's currently no word on post-launch content for Zero Company, but I really hope Bit Reactor will consider adding more species, more droids, and more personality archetypes going forward - if nothing else than to let me live my dream of putting the slug from The Rise of Skywalker in some kind of suicide mission scenario.

Not to call a Quacta slimy or something (because I love Klaud dearly), what most impressed me about Zero Company was how its tactics components directly inform its RPG and narrative elements and vice-versa. As you take your team on missions, make key decisions on operations and pursue or dismiss side-storylines, you grow and weaken bonds with different members of Zero Company. The more Separatist-aligned Runa Blask may appreciate you for staying out of the Republic's good graces in one op, but don't expect that to be to Trick's liking. Likewise, rendering aid to refugees for free might be the right choice for some in Zero Company, but others of a more self-preserving persuasion may not be so happy.

This balancing act also impacts gameplay. As bonds are strengthened between operators, Hawks can implement fresh upgrades like damage or health buffs to take advantage of in the field. Operators with a low opinion of each other may bristle at being forced to work together, but, over time, come to fashion a certain camaraderie. I found it hard not to get attached to not just the authored heroes in Zero Company's journey - brought to life by an impressive mix of actors and wonderfully drawn by Bit Reactor's narrative team - but also those characters I'd created myself. Even then, were one of those creations to meet their end in battle, their death would wring further emotional investment from the story, with a memorial wall in The Den offering a chance for Hawks and his allies to reflect.

That emergent narrative potential - and the moment-to-moment tension that comes from the turn-based tactics genre - resulted in some of the most gripping and rewarding moments I've ever had in a Star Wars game. Do you leave an operator behind to cover your extraction, having them go down in a blaze of glory, or do you risk your team to bring them home? Is it worth trying to catch that Droideka mid-roll if it leaves that operator exposed? Can Kabbney Upercut upercut that droid hard enough to hit another droid, or will it leave his opera-listening days over?

I've had a lot of these questions during my time with Zero Company, and it should hopefully go some way in illustrating how the game exists at the exact intersection of stress and joy. The balance between risk and reward is ever-present, and it makes each and every mission valuable regardless of whether it has a direct bearing on the overarching story.

There are some technical bugs to contend with, sadly, as well as some recurring awkward moments where the camera struggled to play ball as I switched operators between levels. Glitched textures on character models and environments also broke immersion from time to time, while certain player-created characters would corrupt and fail to be thrown into the recruitment pool properly. Performance was sometimes choppy on the beefy-seeming PlayStation 5 Pro, with a lot of chugging as enemy phases were initiated during combat. That lack of polish did make for some frustrating encounters, and it's especially frustrating when the camera can't lock in on a satisfying combat move, but hopefully bumps like these will be patched out as Zero Company enters its post-release phase of development.

Despite those slight hiccups, Star Wars: Zero Company is a resounding success for Bit Reactor and co-developer Respawn. An Outer Rim playground that should unite tactics aficionados, people who see the words "Joh Yowza" and know exactly who I'm talking about, and folks who spent way too much time on the computer making freaky lil' guys in The Sims together under one lovely Star Wars roof. When it flows, it feels like you're hitting hyperspace. Punch it, and don't look back.

Review Score: ★★★★½

Reviewed on PlayStation 5 Pro.